To his splendid public liberality the emperor added bounties no
less popular. The property of Aemilia Musa, a rich woman who died intestate,
on which the imperial treas-
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ury had a claim, he handed over to Æmilius
Lepidus, to whose family she appeared to belong; and the estate of
Patuleius, a wealthy Roman knight, though he was himself left in part his
heir, he gave to Marcus Servilius, whose name he discovered in an earlier
and unquestioned will. In both these cases he said that noble rank ought to
have the support of wealth. Nor did he accept a legacy from any one unless
he had earned it by friendship. Those who were strangers to him, and who,
because they were at enmity with others, made the emperor their heir, he
kept at a distance. While, however, he relieved the honourable poverty of
the virtuous, he expelled from the Senate or suffered voluntarily to retire
spendthrifts whose vices had brought them to penury, like Vibidius Varro,
Marius Nepos, Appius Appianus, Cornelius Sulla, and Quintus
Vitellius.